Until you have ripened words in the heart, don’t speak them,
Don’t just bring to the tongue whatever there is in the heart.

Introduction

This collection of books and journals forms the core of material for my research into the recent definition of the canon of Uyghur literature. Recent Uyghur scholarship and publications in China have begun to construct a unified literary history for the Uyghur ethnic group out of the long and diverse tradition of Turkic literature. The motivations and methods of this work offer insight into how literary works become identity symbols for social groups.

Since 1980 in China, in the context of political liberalization following the excesses of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, there has been an unprecedented growth in the study and publication of the literature of the Uyghurs of Xinjiang (also known as Eastern or Chinese Turkestan). The ethnic group known as Turki or Eastern Turki before the 1920s and as Uyghur (also Uighur or Uygur) since then, has never before under Chinese rule been given the opportunity to publish and appreciate a literature it could identify as reflecting its national identity. Since 1980, literature that had previously only circulated in manuscript form has been collected, edited and published on a large scale, and strong nationalist sentiments have grown around this material, which has been embraced as a coherent tradition embodying Uyghur culture, values and identity.

The works in my collection represent the results of research by most of the important scholars of Uyghur literature now working in China, as well as several from the Soviet Union. The breadth of the Uyghur literary tradition, its rapid wholesale conversion into print, and the complex ideological concerns governing which works and interpretations have become widely accepted, make it distinctive among world literary traditions. The materials that I have collected reveal a process of creating a tradition from disparate sources, in which writings that have been widely dispersed in time, space, and cultural context, are being brought together and presented as a coherent whole that stands for and helps shape national cultural identity.

In Chapters 2-6 of my dissertation, I discuss many of these works and the ways they have been used by Uyghurs thinking about their cultural identity.

The following list of works contains primary materials in Turkic, and background materials in Chinese, Russian, and English.

I cite the full name of the Shinjang Uygur Aptonom Rayonluq Az Sanliq Millät Qädimki Kitablarini Yighish, Rätläsh, Näshrigä Täyyarlash Ishkhanisi [The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Office for Collection, Edition, and Preparation for Publication of Minority Nationality Ancient Books] not only because it underlines the collective, official and bureaucratic nature of these publishing endeavors, but also for the variations that indicate a refreshing lack of concern for

Muginov, Abdulladzhan Muginovich. Opisanie uigurskikh rukopisei Instituta Narodov Azii. Moscow: 1962.One of the first attempts to classify a certain group of traditional manuscripts as “Uyghur” based on linguistic features, and time and place of composition, rather than on their popularity among Uyghur readers.

Sawut, Torsunmuhämmät. Uyghur ädäbiyati tarikhi materiyallar katalogi. Ürümchi: Shinjang Dashö Därslik Bölümi, 1991. Publisher indicated on cover as: Shinjang Dashö Til – Ädäbiyat Fakulteti. 388 page oliograph typescript.Bibliography listing 3541 books and articles about Uyghur literary history, organized by period and subject. More valuable is the list of 665 manuscript titles held in eight collections in Ürümchi. (This book is only available at the Textbook Office of Xinjiang University. It cannot be mailed from the country because it has no publication registration number.)

COLLECTIONS AND JOURNALS

Bulaq; Uyghur kilassik edibiyati mejmua’esi [title varies]. Ürümchi: Shinjang Khälq Näshriyati. Issues 1-41 (1980-1993).The more than 10,000 pages published so far in this journal contain discussions and editions of works that are being included into the Uyghur literary canon, and many translations of works from Persian and other Turkic languages. Hence it gives an excellent view into the processes of creating the Uyghur literary tradition from works discovered in single surviving copies, and from works that have been preserved abroad, and must be brought home and disseminated to include them within the tradition. Qädimqi Uyghur yazma yadikarliqliridin tallanma. Abduqäyyum Khoja, et al., eds. Ürümchi: Shinjang Khälq Näshriyati, 1983.Collection of excerpts in Turkic from the Orkhon tablets, Turfan manuscript finds, and Mahmud Kashghari. Shinjang Özbek ädibliri. Qadir Äkbär, ed. Ürümchi: Shinjang Khälq Näshriyati, 1988.This collection of poems by “Uzbek” poets is an important indication of the ways by which poets can excluded from a Uyghur ethnic identity. Several poets in this collection are popular among Uyghur singers and readers and circulated widely in manuscripts among Uyghurs, but apparently because their writings are strongly religious and even ecstatic, they are excluded from the modern Uyghur vision of proper literature. Uyghur kilassik ädäbiyatidin. Tiyipjan Eliyop, Räkhmitulla Jari, eds. Ürümchi: Shinjang Khälq Näshriyati, 1980.

Early selection of excerpts from important Turkic or Uyghur authors from Mahmud Kashghari through Molla Bilal.

Ädip Äkhmät binni Mäkhmut Yuknäki. Ätäbätulhäqayiq. Beijing: Millätlär Näshriyati, 1980. Khämit Tomur, Tursun Ayub, eds. Transcription and translation. This brief thirteenth- or fourteenth-century didactic dastan is one of the first Turkic works of a strongly Islamic content to be written in Central Asia. This version is edited from Arabic script and Uyghur vertical script versions, all of which are in Turkey.

Älishir Navayi [Nava’i]. Ghäzällär. Ürümchi: Shinjang Khälq Näshriyati, 1982. Transcription with modern translation. A selection of the ghazal poetry by the most prolific fifteenth-century Turkic poet, Mir Ali Shir Nava’i, put into modern orthography. This work seems to exclude many of the more religious writings of this poet, but nonetheless has not been reprinted and is difficult to find.

Äkhmät Hojam Niyaz Oghli Qusuri. Rävzätuz zuhra. Qäshqär: Qäshqär Uyghur Näshriyati, 1990. Edited by Imin Säypulla according to the plan of the Shinjang Uyghur Aptonom Rayonluq Az Sanliq Millät Qädimki Äsärlirini Toplash, Rätläsh, Näshir Qilish Ishkhanisi. A mystical dastan by an eighteenth-century Sufi poet from the region of Pichan. One of the many works of which manuscripts are not known outside Xinjiang.

Babur, Zahir ad-Din Muhammad. Traktat ob `Aruze; faksimile rukopisi; Izdanie teksta, vstupitel’naia stat’ia i ukazateli. I. V. Stebleva, ed. Moscow: Nauka, 1972. The writings of the famous founder of the Moghul Empire in India on the application of the Persian poetic principles known as `aruz within Turkic poetry.

Gada’i. The Divan of Gada’i. Janos Eckmann, ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Publications. Uralic and Altaic Series, volume 113. 1971. Fascimile, transcription, and glossary. Central Asian Turkic poet of the fifteenth century, whose writings are scarce and not usually considered to be part of the Uyghur tradition. From a linguistic and thematic point of view there is no reason his works should not be included, so it will be interesting to see how he will be treated as he becomes known in Xinjiang.

Gheribi. Bähramgor. Mämitimin Yüsüp, ed. Qäshqär: Qäshqär Uyghur Näshriyati, 1989. Original version of this dastan composed by Nizami Gänjivi in Persian, rewritten by Khisrav Dehlävi, and then a Turkic version written by Nava’i. The present version written in the mid-nineteenth century by the Kashgar poet Gheribi. Edited from a manuscript which was copied in 1838, now held at the Shinjang Uyghur Aptonom Rayonluq Az Sanliq Millät Qädimki Kitablarini Yighish, Rätläsh, Näshrigä Täyyarlash Ishkhanisi.

Ibrahim Mäshhuri. Divan Mäshhuri. Kashgar: 1985. Author is late nineteenth-century Sufi poet. Work contains many references to daily life in the cities of Kashgar and Khotan.

Qidirkhan Yärkändi. Divan Qidiri ning muqäddimisi. Qäshqär: Qäshqär Uyghur Näshriyati, 1986. Transcription with translation. The surviving parts of an introduction to a poet’s collected works, describing poetic performances in the sixteenth century under the rule of the Yarkand Khanate.

Rabghuzi [Nasir ud-din ibn Burhan ud-din ar-Rabghuzi]. Qissäsul Änbiya. Qäshqär: Qäshqär Uyghur Näshriyati, 1988. Oliograph typescript. Legends of the Muslim saints, in a famous Turkic version from the fourteenth century, widely circulated in manuscript throughout Central Asia. This non- scholarly publication is important because it indicates that traditional texts that do not get published as official parts of the Uyghur canon still have a popular audience because they are important to Uyghur religious identity. Transliteration into modern Uyghur modified Arabic script of a version lithographed in Tashkent in 1895.

Yusuf Khass Hajib. Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig); A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes. Robert Dankoff, translation and notes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. English translation of one of the most important early Turkic literary works.

Yusuf Khas Hajib. Qutadghu bilik. [Colophon has: Qutadghu bilik ning Pärghanä nuskhisi.] Ürümchi: Shinjang Khälq Näshriyati, 1985. Facsimile edition of the Arabic script Tashkent manuscript of this philosophical guide for rulers by an eleventh-century Turk whom Uyghurs have come to see as one of the two founders of Uyghur literature.

Molla Mersalih Kashqäri. Chinggiznamä. Qäshqär: Qäshqär Uyghur Näshriyati, 1985. Haji Nurhaji, ed. Edited from a manuscript now held at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, #00679. Matches exactly the manuscript described by Muginov (Opisanie, 1962, #38) as an anonymous history of Kashgar.

Molla Ismätulla binni Molla Nemätulla Mojiz. Tävarikhi musiqiyyun. Änvär Baytur, Khämit Tomur, eds. Beijing: Millätlär Näshriyati, 1982. Facsimile, transcription, translation into modern Uyghur, and commentary. A thirty-nine page manuscript history of musicians, poets and singers, written in 1854. The original is now held by the Nationalities Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

Molla Musa Sayrami. Tarikhiy äminiyä. Muhämmät Zunun, ed. Ürümchi: Shinjang Khälq Näshriyati, 1991. Early twentieth-century historian whose manuscript work was first published as a lithograph by Pantusov in 1905 in Tashkent.

Molla Musa Sayrami. Tarikhi Hämidi. Änvär Baytur, ed. Beijing: Millätlär Näshriyati, 1986. Edited from a 1911 autograph manuscript at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, under the direction of the SUAR Az Sanliq Millätlärining Qädimqi Äsärlirini Yighish, Rätläsh, vä Näshr Qilishni Pilanlash Rähbärlik Guruppisi. Pp. 27-711 are the text, 712-775 are notes. This manuscript does not seem to exist in collections outside of Xinjiang, except as a fragment in the Lund collection of Gunnar Jarring. It is an extension and elaboration of the same author’s Tarikhiy äminiyä. Qädimqi Uyghurlarning tarikhiy dastani Oghuznamä. Beijing: Millätlär Näshriyati, 1980. Geng Shimin, Tursun Ayup, eds. Transcription, translation, notes. An historical epic of unknown date describing the mythical origins and history of the Oghuz tribe of Turks. Modern Uyghur scholars consider this part of the Uyghur tradition. The original manuscript is an Uyghur vertical script version in Paris.

Shah Mähmut Joras. [Churas]. Sä’idiyä Khandanliqi tarikhigha da’ir matiriyallar. Qäshqär: Qäshqär Uyghur Näshriyati, 1988. Translated from Persian by Häbibulla Eli from the edition of Akimushkin (Moscow, 1976), introduction by Qurban Väli. Author wrote this work in Persian in the Eastern Turki city of Kashgar in the seventeenth century, describing the cultural life and history of the court and its conflicts with surrounding rulers.

STUDIES OF LITERATURE AND LITERARY HISTORY

Ärshidinov, Batur. Uyghur klassikliri ijadiyitigä dastan zanri (XIX äsirning birinchi yerimi). Almuta: Nauka, 1988. A Soviet Uyghur scholar’s work on the dastan genre of Uyghur poetry during the first half of the nineteenth century, a period of considerable popular upheaval in which the dastan in both oral and literary forms played an important role.

Kaidarov, A. T. Razvitie sovremennogo uigurskogo literaturnogo iazyk. Alma-Ata: 1969. Soviet Uyghur description of the development of Uyghur literary poetry and prose. Gives the version of the Uyghur literary tradition constructed by Uyghur scholars living in the Soviet Union.

Uyghur ädäbiyati tarikhi; aliy mäktäplär üchün därslik. Vol. 3. [Ürümchi]: Shinjang Ma’arip Näshriyati, 1992 – . Part of a four volume history of Uyghur literature, more comprehensive than previous efforts. This is the third volume, covering the period 1650-1920. The series came out beginning with volume four and working backwards.

It’s a useful corrective on a UK mainstream media narrative on the economic impact of Crimea dominated by self-interested City analysts telling us the West has miscalculated in doing anything other than patting Russia on the back over the past month, as it is claimed that Russia will simply reorient itself towards China in the event of any sanctions.

In what ways can Russia reorient towards China? Russia is still an economy driven by exporting primary commodities, especially oil and gas, and China is a rapidly growing market for both energy and commodities. There is, however, no gas pipeline between Russia and China. China already sources a huge amount of energy from Central Asia and the Middle East (never forget that 90% of Gulf oil flows east). Why should China buy Russian gas and spent a lot of money on pipelines to get it, instead of Kazakh or Turkmen gas through an already existing pipe? Indeed, Evans-Pritchard correctly points out that China is an assertive player in the New Great Game taking place in Central Asia over gas and much else.

I’m surprised that Evans-Pritchard fails to point out the other obvious reason for Chinese coldness towards Russian expansionism. China is extremely wary of encouraging separatism in its Wild West: Tibet and especially Uyghuristan, where the pot of ethnic tensions is currently being kept at a hot simmer by continual heavy migration of Han Chinese to this historically Turkic Muslim region. Beijing is almost always a conservative diplomatic player and it is not in China’s selfish interests to upset what was becoming a global consensus that big states don’t annex little bits of neighbouring states.

Ultimately, I think the Russians have miscalculated badly over Crimea. Russia’s economy has massive structural problems – overdependent on energy and especially on gas sales to Europe along with an ageing and shrinking population, not particularly well educated and in desperately poor health. Russia’s demographic statistics are grim, albeit somewhat improved over the past decade: life expectancy at birth is 70; the total fertility rate is only 1.61 and the population has shrunk by 5 million since the end of the USSR despite massive migrations of both ethnic Russians and others from other ex-Soviet republics. While the sanctions imposed by Western states – remember this includes Russia’s most important export markets – are probably ineffectual, the nervousness generated about Russia’s stability at home and abroad is a real economic problem, and capital flight is starting to become an issue. With the Chinese cautious and the West rebuffed, where can Russia turn now for allies? The Middle East, and other energy-rich states with the same sort of economic structure it has already? I don’t see how that adds up, economically or otherwise, for Russia. Exporting gas to Iran isn’t really a starter.

In the short term, surface appeareances may be that Putin has humiliated both Kiev and the Western powers through simple aggression and brinkmanship. In the medium term, what has it gained and at what cost? It has occupied territory with little to offer economically, and the Russian Black Sea fleet already had all the basing rights it needed. Crimea’s regional government is as bankrupt as the rest of the Ukrainian state. Putin has probably ended any possibility of a pro-Moscow government emerging in Kiev for a generation and pushed the EU and USA to finally engage with Eastern Europe’s forgotten big country. Both Putin personally and Russia as a country suddenly look very unstable, ruining the image of thuggish efficiency cultivated over Putin’s years in power. Further risks remain: mistreatment of Crimean Turks could do Moscow enormous reputational damage in Turkey and, more importantly, hitherto loyal Central Asia; Eastern Ukraine remains a potential minefield for everyone and Moscow is hardly treading carefully.

The cautious Angela Merkel, usually measured in her language about other world leaders, warned Obama privately a month ago that Putin was in danger of losing touch with reality. Depressingly, I think that might be right.

Personality sites tend to characterise Putin as the ultimate INTJ strategic mastermind. Under pressure, what is his Myers-Briggs shadow? An ESFP behaving badly – aggressive, acting on impulse, failing to think the consequences of decisions through, and desperate to the be at the centre of attention. I know Jungian psychology isn’t everybody’s cup of tea but – recognise anyone here?

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Budapest| Construction workers building the foundations of a new bridge over the Danube River in the Hungarian capitol, have unearthed a spectacular 6th century sepulchre. The analysis of the monument revealed that it was the burial chamber of a great hunnic leader, most likely that of King Attila himself.

“This site is absolutely incredible!” explains Albrecht Rümschtein, an historian from the Lorand Eötvös University in Budapest and member of the team of specialists investigating the tomb. “We found many horse skeletons, as well as various weapons and other artefacts, all traditionally associated with Huns. These objects include a large sword made of meteoric iron, which could certainly be Attila’s legendary “Holy War Sword of the Scythians”, allegedly given to him by the god Mars himself. In fact, this definitely seems to be the resting place of the almighty Attila, but further analysis needs to be done to confirm it.”

Nicknamed “the scourge of God” by roman historians, Attila was the ruler of the Huns, a nomadic people originating possibly from Central Asia. He ruled from 434 A.D., until his death in 453 after a feast celebrating his latest marriage to a beautiful and young gothic princess named Ildico. He led many military raids on both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires provoquing what has become knowned as the Barbarian Invasions or the Great Migration, a large movement of germanic populations that greatly accelerated the fall of Rome and the advent of the Middle Ages in Europe. He his considered by most Hungarians, as the founder of the country.

The discovery of this funerary site could bring many clarifications concerning the origins and identity of the hunnic people and of Attila himself, which have both been sources of debate for centuries. The analysis of pieces of pottery and jewelry found on the site, should bring a new light on their cultural origins and trade networks, and help scientists better understand this badly documented people.